Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), located in Basel, Switzerland, was formed in 1930 to facilitate the transfer of reparations from the World War. The BIS is not accountable to any national government.

The New York (NY) Times of November 16, 1930 called the BIS the “Central Bankers’ Central Bank.” The BIS is also called the “central banks’ central bank.”

Wikipedia: Bank for International Settlements
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an intergovernmental organization of central banks which “fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks.” It is not accountable to any national government. The BIS carries out its work through subcommittees, the secretariats it hosts, and through its annual General Meeting of all members. It also provides banking services, but only to central banks, or to international organizations like itself. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS was established by the Hague agreements of 1930. The name of the BIS in German: Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich (BIZ), in French: Banque des Règlements Internationaux (BRI), in Italian: Banca dei Regolamenti Internazionali (BRI). It has representative offices in Hong Kong and Mexico City.
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Since 2004, the BIS has published its accounts in terms of Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, replacing the Gold Franc as the bank’s unit of account. As of March 2007[update] (end of month) the bank had total assets of $409.15 billion, given a dollar/SDR exchange rate of 1.51 for March 30, 2007. Included in that total is 150 tons of fine gold.
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Board of directors
Christian Noyer, Paris (Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Hans Tietmeyer, Frankfurt am Main (Vice-Chairman)
Ben Bernanke, Washington, DC; (Federal Reserve Chairman—ed.)
Mark Carney, Ottawa;
Mario Draghi, Rome;
William Dudley, New York; (Federal Reserve of NY—ed.)...

16 November 1930, New York (NY) Times, “Topics in Wall Street,” pg. N9:
Central Bankers’ Central Bank.
When the plan for the Bank of International Settlements was first advanced, suggestions that the institution might ultimately become the repository for central bank reserves and the clearing house for international payments were scouted as visionary in many quarters. Now, after neary six months operation of the new world bank, Gates W. McGarrah, its president, is able to say that the transer of reparations payments is only a small part of the bank’s work and to point to the cooperation o the central banks as the outstanding achievement of the period. The bank has progressed, according to Mr. McGArrah, to a point where the first germ of a foreign exchange clearing fund is already at hand, and the expectation that the “B. I. S.” will become “the great centre or central bank reserves as well as a common clearing house” is justified.

Google BooksMoney, Banking, and Economic Welfare
By Paul B. Trescott
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
1960
Pg. 352:
Under the Young Plan for German reparations, a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was established at Basel, Switzerland, in 1930. It was designed as a “central-bankers’ central bank,” holding deposits for individual central banks and making international transfers for them.

Google BooksThose Swiss Money Men
By Ray Vicker
New York, NY: Scribner
1973
Pg. 34:
Basle also contains a unique institution which is in Switzerland geographically, but which is really international. This is the Bank or International Settlements. It is a central bankers’ central bank.

Google BooksDebt Shock:
The full story of the world credit crisis
By Darrell Delamaide
Garden City, NY: Anchor Books
1985
Pg. 136:
The BIS grew into the central banks’ central bank.

Google BooksThe International Debt Game
By Brian Kettell and George Magnus
Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Pub. Co.
1986
Pg. 105:
The role of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
Often known as the central bankers’ central bank, the BIS has its headquarters in the Swiss city of Basle. It was set up in 1930 to handle German reparations after the First World War but today provides an invaluable forum for central bankers, handles international monetary transactions, takes deposits from central banks worldwide and monitors the scale and scope of banks’ lending and borrowing activities.

Google BooksThe Confidence Game:
How unelected central bankers are governing the changed global economy
By Steven Solomon
New York, NY: Simon and Schuster
1995
Pg. 111:
The Central Bankers’ Central Bank
The BIS was one of the world’s unique and most mysterious institutions.